A New Company Site….

Well as some of you know, two weeks ago I was given a HUGE project of redesigning our company website. This is a huge undertaking for any graphics designer. And well, since I’m NOT a graphics designer, it’s an even bigger task for me. I was given 8 days to complete the task and handed a book of mock ups from our CEO as to what he wanted it to look like. The first round was in black and white…

I really didn’t like the looks of it. But I’ve learned that when the CEO gives me something like this, I don’t have much ability to change what he wants. When he says to design something new, with no mockups, I can do whatever I want. But when there’s mock-ups. He wants them to look identical.

So I started… I worked two whole days on the layout, the specific div tags, the placement of menus, etc. Then I got the color printouts. I HATED it.

But I followed it. I created the headings, the graphics. Everything. Hating each and every bit of it. I tried changing little bits here and there. It started to look better. Then we got into the review sessions, and they all got changed back. “Trebuchet” size 16 font for the main body, horrible. The placement, etc. I just couldn’t deal with it. But my input was falling on deaf ears.

Two days before it was to go live, the VP came over and asked to see it. He came up with some changes to make it look better, a couple new headers to try out, stuff like that. But it still looked horrible. The giant font on the body tags, etc. I just couldn’t deal.

We’re now 3 days past due, still working on content, etc. People have been working thier asses off on it. Trying to get it to look better.

Today at 1 I was getting ready to leave when some of the developers stopped over and asked how I felt about it. I said I hated it. They said they hated it, we brought in the VP and talked to him. We spent the next hour, the five of us frantically changing things, adding colors and graphics and trying out new headers.

I was amazed at how fast it came together. How quickly such an UGLY site could change to something so much better. Below is the version the CEO likes and the (close to) final product (that everyone else likes). Sadly, it still has to go through the CEO approval. Hopefully with 5 of us in there telling him this is what we like. It’ll get pushed through.

This is a project I would NOT put my name on…

Ugly New WebReach Site

This is a project, I’m happy to place my name on….

New WebReach Site

Some of the other projects I’ve been working my ass off on include a new mock-up site for McKesson… This is a site I was given by the CEO and told to have complete creative control over, yet make it “professional” looking as doctors/pharmacies, etc would be using it:

New McKesson Site

And lastly here’s the other latest website I did. There was a much better looking version of it that I liked better. Sadly it got scrapped. 🙁

New Mirth Appliance Site

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